Black Books: It'll make you laugh, I promise.

Black Books thread.

For a long time, I struggled to laugh at a lot of comedy, not because it was American, but because it referenced American THINGS I didn't really understand apart from my brief holiday there in 2005 I think it was. I was round about 15 when I went.

Anyway, so Black Books, it's different to a lot of comedy you normally see, because you don't need to be indoctrinated into too much pop culture to understand it. It's just... hilarious on its own terms.

I don't know what it is about some British comedies, but it's not just that they're British that they're good - but the comedic timing and the writing of jokes that translate well from the page to the TV screen really works for them more often than not. That said, Little Britain isn't as funny for me as it used to be, whereas Black Books remains as funny, possibly funnier now, because I have gotten jokes in the show that I missed because I was too young/naive to understand the subtleties of Dylan Moran's misanthropy.

If you haven't seen it, watch it. One of the best shows from Britain since Father Ted.

Black books is one of my favorite TV shows simply because it has a stable premise but is more than willing to do something completely left-of-field.

Fran: If I told you the walls of my flat were moving in, would you say I was mad?

Bernard: No I'd ask you to come over and look after my small children.

I love this show so much.

Well to nitpick, it's really Irish. I haven't seen it in years and I wonder how it's held up, plus whether it deteriorated as it went on.. But I remember thinking it compared well to Father Ted at the time. I don't really like the IT Crowd though.

No, Black Books is a British show, even if both of its creators are Irish.

Well, I guess in production terms as opposed to intellectually.

I saw Black Books at a friend's when I was staying for the weekend. When a show suffers from British Brevity as badly as this one does, that means you can watch the whole damn thing in nine hours. Nine hilarious, joke-packed hours. The only trouble is that whenever I do that, I wind up with a faint Irish accent and menace-to-society-level misanthropy.

Blacks Books is great! I can't believe they don't show it on BBC America. Or do they? Bernard does have great wit and good chemistry with Manny. But in response to Yukijin, what's wrong with I.T. Crowd. I love that show.

Black Books is great. It's just so... randomly hilarious.

^^A matter of opinion. In mine, some of it feels forced and there are more misfires than I'm used to from Linehan (seriously, look at his writing credits). Oddly, I disliked the characters played by Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry, despite being an early adopter with Darkplace.

To be fair though, I found some of the first season funny. Chris Morris helped.

That's odd, I find that Black Books and IT Crowd are quite alike. I watched IT Crowd first and when I finally got around to watching Black Books I found it really similar. I do find that IT Crowd sometimes tries to hard. I think it crosses the line sometimes (April, anyone?).

I love Black Books though. Bernard has to be one of my favourite characters ever; he's misanthropic to an extreme.

And Sophisticated as Hell

I love Black Books. I think my favorite bit was in the first episode with the religious guys. "Hello, we'd like to talk to you about Jesus." "Wonderful! Come in!"

I think the show starts out a lot more like IT Crowd and Father Ted than where it ends up. I'm not sure if I noticed this before or after I noticed that Graham Linehan was only involved in the first season. He didn't even create it, the producers just brought him in to rewrite Dylan Moran's much darker concept.

I still think the anecdote that inspired the show applies to it though. Moran said he was in a used bookshop and saw a sign that invited customers who had decided against books they'd picked up to put them down anywhere, because the staff honestly didn't have anything else to do, and he wanted to evoke that desperate malaise.

If you're gonna show it to someone, though, make them promise to stick around for at least two episodes before passing judgement. The show can be a bit odd until you get used to it.

For example: In year 12, my class insisted our English teacher watch it on the last day of school (since we never work on the last day of school). For the entire first episode, she was stone-faced. About halfway through the second episode she began to laugh hysterically, and from that moment on she was hooked.

Bernard: You're my oldest friend. Don't you think it's about time we admitted how we feel about each other. Just for the summer?

Fran: No, I think we should wait.

Bernard: Until when?

Fran: Until at least one of us is dead.